If you are reading this article, then surely you are thinking about what to do if you hate your job. Most people might say, “Man, I am exploiting more than one-third of my life in a job that I don’t like.” In this circumstance, on the internet, you will see that you should continue your job until retirement because it pays your bills and feeds your family. Also, you will have good savings. But the thing is, you are doing something in your whole life that you don’t like.
On the other side of the internet, you will see influencers motivating, like, “Hey, if you don’t like your job, then you can do your own business. You will get rich, become a millionaire, and you will have fun, freedom, and flexibility of work.” But the reality is, quitting your job is extremely risky in this competitive job market. And starting a business is not everyone’s cup of tea.
So, there is another option which we are gonna explore in this article.
Knowing Job Happiness
There are several factors that make someone enjoy a job—it could be the salary, the position, or the work environment. But there are deeper factors at play.
An excellent book by Daniel H. Pink, The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, describes other key elements that drive intrinsic motivation—in other words, doing a job not just for the money. Let’s break this down into three key things:
Autonomy: The freedom to decide how you do your work.
Mastery: The feeling of learning and getting better at things.
Purpose: Knowing that the work you do has a meaningful impact on your life.
If your job gives you autonomy, mastery, and purpose, then you’ll become really good at it—even if you’re not passionate about it.
By becoming good at something, you increase its value, grow your career capital, and later on, you can cash in that capital to gain more autonomy and flexibility in your life.
If you don’t enjoy your job, it probably means you’re missing one of these key elements. And if you ignore this and simply leave your job to start a business because an influencer said so—you might end up broke.
Okay, so now that we know we want autonomy, mastery, and purpose, there are three normal paths we can follow to improve our job satisfaction:
Short-term path – Strategic adjustments you can use to make your daily work better.
Long-term path – Building your career capital over time, so you can trade it later for better work conditions.
Exit path – If you don’t want to follow the first two paths, then consider a thoughtful and planned transition into something new.
Let’s dive in.
The Short-Term Path
When people say they hate their jobs, it’s a general statement that needs to be broken down to understand the real reasons. It’s very rare that you hate 100% of your job. There are always components—like certain people, specific tasks, particular days, or activities—that you don’t hate quite as much.
To get clarity, you should analyze your daily routine: What are you doing each day? Which parts of your work are energizing you, and which ones are draining you?
Use these strategies to discover what to do if you hate your job.
1. Make an Energy Calendar
Clearly, the things you hate are draining your energy. But identifying what gives you energy is just as important—and that insight is valuable. To do this, you should create an energy calendar.
Each day, look back at your schedule and mark your activities:
Green: Tasks that give you energy
Yellow: Tasks that feel energy-neutral
Red: Tasks that drain your energy
Over time, this will help you see patterns—so you can make smart, strategic adjustments to reduce red tasks and do more of the green ones.
This is a very clear way of sorting out the particular aspect of your job that you hate and what adjustments might be under your control. Try to minimize the red mark your daily schedule into green or yellow. Could you change your work time or environment? Could you read productivity books or share thoughts with your peers, convince your manager that you can add more value to the work by doing that, this (explain from your personal circumstance)? But you cannot expect to turn your daily calendar entirely green. This gives us a practical way of slowly improving our job satisfaction over time and add more value to it.
2. Energizing site projects
A friend of mine who is working in nursing finds her job quite energy-draining. One thing she did was explore her curiosity. She was curious about how computer systems work and why IT people can’t handle nursing issues. She figured out how the computing system in a hospital works and she realized that she actually enjoys this work instead of her nursing job. And by making this a side project,
She found fulfillment in her energy.
She managed to craft her role.
She was doing both nursing and IT jobs, which she enjoys, and over time, her energy-draining turned into energy-creating.
Long-term path
You don’t always have to start your own business to become successful. A great example of this is Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple. He didn’t build his own company. He worked his way up at IBM, did great work, and stood out. Then he joined a smaller tech company called Compaq, where Steve Jobs noticed him and invited him to Apple. There, Tim kept creating value, helping the company, and slowly moved up until he became the CEO. Now, he’s a billionaire—not because he started something new, but because he worked hard and made a big impact where he was.
This shows that you don’t have to be a founder to become successful. Many wealthy people have climbed the ladder inside other people’s companies. Of course, if you want to start your own business, go for it—but it’s not the only way. For many people, the best path to wealth is to be really good at your job, bring value, be someone others rely on, and grow from there, making it a long-term path.
The idea of the long-term path is this: if you want more freedom, purpose, and exciting work in your career, you need to build something called “career capital.” That means becoming really good at what you do—so good that you’re hard to replace. When you consistently add value and become someone people rely on, you can eventually use that to get the kind of work-life you really want.
3. Swallow the Frog for your boss.
The best career advice I ever got was: “Swallow the frog for your boss.” It sounds funny, but it means this—find something your boss really dislikes doing, learn how to do it well, and take it off their hands. When you do that, you instantly become more valuable at work and make your boss’s life easier.
You could, for example, ask your boss like,
What are your least favorite tasks that I could take off your plate?
What would it look like if I were twice as good as I currently am?
What could I do to make you delighted to raise my salary by 30%?
It may seem vague, but it will at least give you information on showing how the map looks like. Imagine you lead a team and how great you would feel if someone asked that to you. Most people don’t think like that because we are subconsciously trained that we shouldn’t do anything beyond the things we are paid to do, like “I shouldn’t go beyond my work, add more value and time as I am not getting paid for that.”
It doesn’t work like this: you get a raise first, and then you start showing more value. It’s actually the other way around. You need to keep proving your value over time—become so good and helpful that your company can’t imagine losing you. That’s when you get real leverage to ask for a raise, a promotion, better hours, or whatever matters to you.
4. Be the problem-solver
There is a specific type of person that every team wants to have and companies want to keep. This single reputation can grow your career faster. This means you can cash this in and exchange it for flexibility or mastery of your work. Generally, those who have the reputation of taking on any project and figuring it out are given way more opportunity beyond their job description.
5. Value all the benefits, not just the paycheck
Most people just think about what they are getting from their job in exchange for their time, and most of them think about the salary and the benefits. But salary and benefits are not the only factors that make job satisfaction. Salary is hygiene, not a motivating factor. Very few people say they love their work because of the amount they are getting paid. So another way of getting more value from a job that we hate is to broaden our definition of compensation.
A lot of people don’t realize that compensation isn’t just money. In the early stages of your career, you might get paid through new skills, networking, travel, or growth opportunities. These are all valuable.
If you’re thinking about what to do if you hate your job, try focusing on becoming better at it. When you start adding more value, you often feel more confident, get more freedom, and even enjoy your work more.
Sometimes you give more than you get—but over time, it evens out. And if you keep improving, things usually get better.
6. Drive through the cracked doors
Sometimes in life, opportunities come in small ways—like a little crack in a door. It’s your job to notice them and act fast.
Our next strategy is to jump through the cracked doors. This means that some of the best career chances, the ones that can really change your path and make work more enjoyable, don’t come easily or perfectly. Instead, they show up as small openings or “cracks”—and it’s up to you to notice them and take action.
For example, two young men wanted to run someone’s TikTok account. At first, he said he wasn’t taking calls. Then they said, “We’ll be in New York on Tuesday—can we meet for coffee?” He agreed. Later, he found out they weren’t actually planning to be in New York—they only booked the trip after he said yes. That small meeting led to big projects, and now they work together on many things beyond TikTok.
So, if you’re wondering what to do if you hate your job, one answer is to watch for small chances and take bold action. One small step can lead to something much bigger. If you jump through that small opening and handle it, you build a reputation as someone who can get things done. You become someone the company really needs—and you’ll likely enjoy your job much more.
Exit Path
So maybe you tried these things and you still really hate your job. You’ve done the energy calendar and other steps but found nothing that can help you enjoy your job. Then that brings us to the Exit path. The best and most practical decision would not be to quit your job to start a business; instead, do some side hustle experiments. Can you try and initiate your first one or multiple businesses as a side hustle while you still have a day job?
Over time, as you’re slowly adjusting your job to make it suck a little less, you can also be working on building up your own Exit Plan. This means gaining skills, making connections, or creating something on the side — so when you’re ready, you have the freedom to move on to something better.
Some people are great at starting and running their own businesses, but not everyone is meant to be an entrepreneur, and that’s okay. It might sound cool and glamorous because we mostly hear success stories, but that’s survivorship bias. The truth is, entrepreneurship often means waking up every day to deal with tough problems, grinding through setbacks, and staying motivated even when things get hard. It’s not for everyone, and if you’re wondering what to do if you hate your job know that starting a business isn’t the only answer. There are other smart ways to grow your career and find meaning in your work.
